A little-known federal agency has supported working women for 105 years. Now the Trump administration wants to shut it down.
The Women’s Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor conducts research, analyzes public policy, and promotes the welfare of wage-earning women through education and outreach. It maintains a national database of childcare prices by county. It reports on states’ paid leave programs. And it distributes more than $5 million a year in grant funding to groups like Oregon Tradeswomen that recruit women to high-wage careers where women are underrepresented.
In early 2025, the Women’s Bureau had around 60 employees. As of late May, fewer than 20 remain. Two-thirds of the Women’s Bureau staff left this year through early retirements and resignations. And the bureau’s biggest grant program, the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) grant, didn’t open for applications this spring.
Now the Trump administration and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer have proposed shutting the Women’s Bureau down entirely. The budget proposal released May 30 for the federal fiscal year that begins Oct. 1 calls on Congress to eliminate the Women’s Bureau, describing it as “an ineffective policy office that is a relic of the past.”
The WANTO program had awarded $6 million to nine organizations in 2024. The Fostering Access, Rights and Equity (FARE) grant program awarded $1.4 million. The Labor Department canceled those grants earlier this year, cutting off funding for projects that were already underway around the country.
The WANTO grants were canceled even though Congress appropriated the funding for them. Trump’s DOL budget brief says the administration will work with Congress to repeal the WANTO grant authorization.
Ironworkers Local 29 member Courtney Newberg completed the Oregon Tradeswomen pre-apprenticeship program in 2018. Oregon Tradeswomen has received multiple WANTO grants over the years, but Newberg said she wasn’t aware of the funding source at the time.
“I just really want other women — and really, people of all genders, all people — to have access to these types of programs and these types of life-changing opportunities,” Newberg said. “Losing this funding would be just a huge detriment to our trades and to our society as a whole.”
Wendy Chun-Hoon served as director of the Women’s Bureau under President Joe Biden. Congress increased the funding allocated to WANTO during her tenure, but the number of grant applications increased even more, Chun-Hoon said.
“We had a very clear purpose and perspective around addressing what is known in the field as occupational segregation, where women are overrepresented in some of the lowest paying jobs in our economy and underrepresented in some of the highest paying jobs in our economy,” Chun-Hoon told the Labor Press. The high-paying group includes trades in construction, where women account for less than 5% of workers nationally.
The Women’s Bureau performs three functions: grant funding, data analysis, and outreach and community engagement done by staff in six regional offices around the country.
Connie Ashbrook, executive director of Oregon Tradeswomen from 1996 to 2017, said WANTO grants and the assistance that came along with the funding made a huge impact on Oregon Tradeswomen.
“They really helped us have a larger and more sustainable pre-apprenticeship program. We could have more staff. We could consciously have deeper relationships with our apprenticeship programs that we led students to,” Ashbrook said. Women’s Bureau staff also connected Oregon Tradeswomen with other pre-apprenticeship programs to learn best practices, Ashbrook said.
“It’s a little known agency, and it doesn’t cost a lot at all compared to the broader government spending, but it can have a very important life changing impact for women and families,” said Jessica Stender, policy director for the legal support nonprofit Equal Rights Advocates.
After federal funding recipients were ordered to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion work, Chicago Women in Trades filed a lawsuit against Trump and the heads of federal agencies in late February. A federal judge issued a temporary block on the Trump administration in March, meaning Chicago Women in Trades can still access funding it was awarded from Women’s Bureau programs, including a 2024 WANTO grant.
Other grantees weren’t able to avoid cancellation.
Defending against legal challenges like the one filed by Chicago Women in Trades is eating into the cost savings claimed by the Trump administration.
The Women’s Bureau’s most recent annual budget was $23 million.
More than 50 U.S. Representatives in the Democratic Women’s Caucus, including Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, signed on to an April 14 letter to Chavez-DeRemer calling for maintaining funding to the Women’s Bureau.
The presidents of five building trades unions — the Ironworkers, Insulators, Elevator Constructors, Plasterers and Cement Masons, and Laborers — signed a joint statement with the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues on May 22, calling on Congress to provide a minimum of $32.5 million in funding for the Women’s Bureau. The Electricians and Sheet Metal Workers signed on later, Ashbrook said.
The National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues, currently co-chaired by Ashbrook, is a coalition of tradeswomen and allies advocating for more opportunities and protections for women in the skilled trades.
The taskforce had partnered with Equal Rights Advocates on a project funded by a 2024 FARE grant, which aimed to reduce gender-based violence and harassment at work.
Ashbrook said the group saw the threat to its funding come as the new “Department of Government Efficiency” ramped up work.
“When DOGE started making those weird cuts, we were like, ‘Oh, we have ‘equity’ in the name of our grant. We have ‘women’ in the name of our grant,’” Ashbrook said.
The grant was canceled in early May.
